538 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Hospital, London. In the history of medicine, this work was destined 

 to have an immortality of its own. In the very opening lines of his 

 preface, Addison clearly states, for the first time, the true paths by 

 which, as subsequent experience has proved, the problems of these 

 mysterious glandular structures have been best approached and attacked : 



If Pathology be to disease what Physiology is to health, it appears reason- 

 able to conclude, that in any given structure or organ, the laws of the former will 

 be as fixed and significant as those of the latter; and that the peculiar characters 

 of any structure or organ may be as certainly recognized in the phenomena of 

 disease as in the phenomena of health. When investigating the pathology of the 

 lungs I was led, by the results of inflammation affecting the lung-tissue, to infer, 

 contrary to general belief, that the lining of the air-cells was not identical and 

 continuous with that of the bronchi; and microscopic investigation has since dem- 

 onstrated in a very striking manner the correctness of that inference — an in- 

 ference, be it observed, drawn entirely from the indications furnished by pathol- 

 ogy. Although pathology, therefore, as a branch of medical science, is neces- 

 sarily founded on physiology, questions may nevertheless arise regarding the true 

 character of a structure or organ, to which occasionally the pathologist may be 

 able to return a more satisfactory and decisive reply than the physiologist — 

 these two branches of medical knowledge being thus found mutually to advance 

 and illustrate each other. Indeed, as regards the functions of individual organs, 

 the mutual aids of these two branches of knowledge are probably much more 

 nearly balanced than many may be disposed to admit; for in estimating them, we 

 are very apt to forget how large an amount of our present physiological knowl- 

 edge, respecting the functions of these organs, has been the immediate result of 

 casual observations made on the effects of disease. Most of the important 

 organs of the body, however, are so amenable to direct observation and experi- 

 ment, that in respect to them the modern physiologist may fairly lay claim to a 

 large preponderance of importance, not only in establishing the solid foundation, 

 but in raising and greatly strengthening the superstructure of a rational 

 pathology. 



Tbus did Addison set forth the fact that Nature herself is sometimes 

 the physiologist's best vivisector, even as Billroth and the followers of 

 Marion Sims elucidated the pathology of the abdominal and pelvic 

 viscera by making " autopsies in vivo." 



On March 15, 1849, Addison read a paper before the South London 

 Medical Society 12 in which he described the symptoms of what is now 

 styled pernicious anasmia, cases in which the whole surface of the body 

 "bear some resemblance to a bad wax figure." Only three of the cases 

 came to autopsy, but "in all of them was found a diseased condition' 

 of the supra-renal capsules." Was this a mere coincidence? Addison 

 inquires. 



Making every allowance for the bias and prejudice inseparable from the 

 hope or vanity of an original discovery, he confessed he felt it very difficult to 

 be persuaded that it was so. On the contrary, he could not help entertaining a 

 very strong impression that these hitherto mysterious bodies — the supra-renal 

 capsules — may be either directly or indirectly concerned in sanguification; and 

 that a diseased condition of them, functional or structural, may interfere with 



12 Addison, London Med. Gas., 1849, XLIIL, 517. 



